


Where You Go, I Go

by Duck_Life



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 09:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14892431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Shawn and Katy are both great at sabotaging relationships. They're hoping this time they don't need to.





	Where You Go, I Go

Shawn lets the bakery door swing shut behind him and he gets about halfway down the block before he hears footsteps behind him. He doesn’t turn around, just tips his head back and pinches the bridge of his nose and he is so, so tired. “Riley,” he says quietly, still not looking behind him, “there’s a lot of things you got from your dad that I really love. But this isn’t one of them.”

When they were younger, Cory was always trying to fix Shawn, whether that meant helping him get better grades or helping him get Angela. Now that he’s retired, Riley seems to think it’s her job. “You can’t… you can’t play with the people in your life like they’re dolls. And you can’t  _ make _ me and Katy happen. The only people in the world who can do that are me and Katy.”

“Hi Shawn.”

“Hi Katy.” Embarrassed, he turns around, and of course, there she is, with her eyes sparkling, without an ounce of judgment on her face. “You followed me.”

“You ran out,” Katy points out, and Shawn suddenly feels guilt curdle in his stomach. Katy’s so used to men running out on her, why’d he have to go and add to the collection? 

To be fair, he wasn’t running away from  _ her _ . He was running from the situation. They’d all been relaxing, talking about nothing, really, and he just kept getting gradually more aware of how easy it would be for him to screw everything up. 

It should have been a normal Tuesday night. He was in town, and he wanted to see Katy. And when he got to Topanga’s, everyone was there— Cory and Topanga and the girls and Auggie and, of course, Katy. 

And the thing is that he’s finally starting to understand how he and Katy fit together. And he’s really liking it. But suddenly having to navigate that with his two best friends and their kids and  _ Maya _ watching… it pushed him over the edge, and he panicked. And when he panics, he bolts. 

He’s seen how Katy and Maya fit into the Matthews family. With Riley and Maya attached at the hip, and Topanga pretty much best friends with Katy, not to mention how protective Cory and Topanga are of Maya… tonight, for the first time, he saw the Matthewses and the Harts as one cohesive family. 

And he was here, intruding on that, just waiting for the right moment to make it all go up in flames. At least, that’s how it felt. That’s what pushed him to mumble something about a forgotten errand and book it out of the bakery. 

“I did run out,” Shawn acknowledges, trying to gauge whether Katy’s about to yell at him. She doesn’t look like it. “And you followed me.” He swallows. “Not used to that. I haven’t had anybody who followed me in awhile. Cory used to, but now he’s got that new thing going on.”

“Wife and kids?” Katy suggests, smiling wryly. 

“Yeah, that thing,” Shawn sighs, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “It works well for him,” he says. “Scares the hell out of me.”

“I know what you mean,” Katy says, leaning back against the brick wall behind them. Shawn joins her and they watch the shadows move around the sidewalk and the occasional car zip past. “I get scared. All the time. Did you know, when Maya was about eight, I was seeing this guy. We dated for a month, and then he took me out to a really fancy restaurant and he proposed.”

“Did you say yes?”

“Yeah, Shawn. He and I are married right now,” she says, rolling her eyes. “No. I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no, either. I pretended to choke on a piece of broccoli.”

“Did he believe it?”

“Are you doubting my acting ability?”

“Never.”

“He believed it,” Katy says. “He came around the table and tried to give me the Heimlich. Then I told him I was moving to LA and he could never call me again.” 

“You didn’t actually go to LA, though,” Shawn says.

“Of course not.”

“See, that’s the sign of an amateur relationship saboteur and a professional,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “I would’ve actually gone.”

“Is that where you were heading right now?” 

“Nah,” he says, making a face. “Nothing for me there. Everything I want is in New York City.”

“In the bakery?” 

He turns his head and looks at her for a long moment. “And out here,” he says. “Mostly out here.”

They stand in silence, soaking in the night and each other and all their various traumas. Sometimes Shawn wonders how his life might be different if he’d had Katy around during some of the really terrible parts of his life. If he would have reacted differently. If she would have made him better, or if he would have driven her away early on. 

“How do we do this?” Katy muses aloud. “What happens when you put two relationship saboteurs in a relationship together?”

“Maybe it works,” Shawn says. “Mutually assured destruction.”

“Like if you try to sabotage us, I’ll try to sabotage us first,” Katy agrees. “There we go. This is how healthy adults talk about relationships.” That gets a real smile out of Shawn. “Okay. Okay, why don’t we each say something that we’re scared of?”

“Why?”

“Because when Maya was little, I used to tell her that if you were scared of something, it got less scary when you said it out loud,” Katy explains. 

“You go first.”

She turns, leaning the side of her head against the wall to look at him. “I’m scared that you’ll leave and I won’t be able to follow you like I did tonight.”

Shawn doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t tell her not to worry. That’s something he’s scared of, too. And he was so scared of becoming his parents for so long that he tried to become Cory and Topanga instead, and that’s never worked out for him. He doesn’t share those fears right now, though. 

“I’m scared that this is all too easy,” he says. 

Katy gives him an incredulous look. “What about any of this is  _ easy _ ?” 

“You know,” Shawn says, feeling dumb. “You’re… I mean, your best friends are my best friends. Your kid is… awesome. If I had to  _ wish _ for a family, I couldn’t get one more perfect than you and Maya.” Katy’s soft little smile makes his heart twinge. “In my experience, things that clean and simple don’t last.”

She tilts her head, considering him for moment. Finally she says, “Then I’ll just have to make it harder for you.” She pushes off from the wall and darts across the sidewalk, then back, flitting around him. “Come on. Betcha can’t catch me.”

“You want me to catch you?” Shawn says, watching her with increasing amusement. 

“I want you to try,” she says, hopping out of his reach. “Come on. Come on, try to catch me.” 

“Katy—” But she’s already taken off down the sidewalk, throwing him a quick glance to see if he’s chasing her. 

So he does. He runs after Katy and chases her down the street, the sound of her laughing echoing across the buildings around them. She’s surprisingly speedy, but his legs are longer. Shawn catches up to her after the first crosswalk and boxes her in against the side of the building, an arm on either side of her. 

“Gotcha,” he pants, and he’s out of breath and she’s grinning at him. A nearby streetlamp casts an orange glow across her face, and for a moment he sees her through his photographer’s eyes. He sees her angles and planes, the shine of her hair and the way her eyelashes cast shadows against her cheeks. 

And then he looks at her through his own regular old Shawn eyes, and she’s just gorgeous. So he kisses her. She tastes like cinnamon spice lip gloss and he doesn’t think he could ever get tired of being this entwined with Katy Clutterbucket. 

When he breaks away from Katy, Shawn smiles and says, “Maybe we’re better at this relationship stuff than we thought.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Katy says, and she leans up to kiss him again. 


End file.
